Partizan 2025 - Battle of Kolin 1757

Well, that's the Partizan game sorted!

We were play testing Simon Miller's proposed 'Lust for Glory' rules, which will cover warfare in the 18th Century. The rules are a development of his 'To the Strongest' ancient rules and 'For King and Parliament' rules for the English Civil Wars. The games are played on a gridded table, with each box being wide enough to accommodate an infantry battalion in line, so about 150 yards across.

In order to try some optional 'epic' rules I decided to represent the whole of the Kolin battlefield on the 18 box wide table, so the boxes represented about 500 yards across, and each battalion about 3 real ones - it actually worked out quite well. The cloth in use has 200x200mm boxes (the crosses marking out the corners are not very visible on the photos), into which my 160mm wide units fit quite nicely. 

Thanks to the 12 volunteers who played the game in two shifts, the game was played in good spirits, and I hope they all enjoyed it. We did find some issues with the rules, the most noticeable one being that  cavalry seem to be on a path of mutual destruction, with most of the hussars eliminated by lunchtime - or it could be the gung-ho players.

Further thanks to those of you who called in for a chat. It was interesting to hear your views on the range, and I was pleased to hear that in general you thought the figure styling is on the right track. I hope it inspired you to get casting😊

Below are, in no particular order some photos, the better ones taken by Ian Notter - the others ones mine.

Starting positions with Prussians to the left on the Kaiser Strasse

Zieten's hussars on Prussian left.

Hussars on Austrian right.

Grenz garrison in Krzeczor.

Cavalry on Prussian right.
Cuirassiers are 'Rossbach' conversions (so small)

Battle mid way through.
Austrian cavalry on left are attacking.

Battle near end.
The hussars of each army have eliminated each other.

British Standard Bearer and NCO

Just in case you are not on the mailing list - PA have finally released the mould for the British standard bearer and NCO.

Partizan, Oct 12th & North America

Partizan - Newark - October 12th 2025

Along with Simon Miller (the author of the To the Strongest rules), I am putting on a display/participation game using my 40mm SYW collection. The game will be on a 12' x 6' table and will be based on the Battle of Kolin, using a draft version of Simon's new 18th century rules.

If any of you are planning to go to Partizan, please pop in and have a chat, and if any of you want to join in the game let me know in the comments below and I will let you have more details.

SYW - North America

Chris has sent me some pictures of the figures for the initial release of figures for the SYW in North America. These figures are near complete so should be released in the (PA) near future.

(I recently bought a copy of the Muskets and Tomahawks skirmish rules and am hoping steer PA towards producing enough figures to allow a French and Indian Wars 'skirmish' game to be played?)

British Rangers

There will be four figures in two moulds comprising:

• Officer with musket pointing
• Ranger firing
• Ranger loading
• Ranger advancing

There is a large variety of heads, which as usual will be interchangeable, also the officer will have a separate hand so he can have either a musket or a tomahawk (probably not the separate arm shown). These four figures, with head swaps, should be enough to make a nice skirmishing unit.

Native Americans

Initially there will just be a single mould with:

• Native American firing
• Native American advancing

The heads will be interchangeable, and hopefully for the advancing figure both hands will be separate to allow the musket and tomahawk to be switched. It is appreciated that two figures are not enough for gaming purposes (but PA wanted to release them now). It is intended to produce (hopefully many) more figures in a variety of poses and clothing to allow interesting gaming units of different nations to be collected.

Future plans for the North American range

As discussed above, it is planned to add further Native American figures.

PA already produce moulds to cast French and British regular 'close order' units, and the 'advancing' figures look OK in a skirmish game. At a later stage it might be worth adding a single mould to each of those ranges with firing figures - this is a very long term idea.

Militia units played a significant role in the war, so it is planned to produce moulds to cover those figures.

As usual comments welcome.

Progress & Standing Infantry Command

Progress

British Standard Bearer and NCO

I am told that "The British standard bearer and NCO  moulds will be out this week" - we shall see😌

North American Theatre

After a long vacation in Middle Earth (Mithril Miniatures), Chris is back on the SYW range and is currently working on troops for the North American conflict - I will write more when I have some pictures he is happy to release (I have seen the work in progress and they look nice).

Standing Infantry Command

Back in June there was discussion about what SYW moulds to do next, and one of the things on the list is a set of standing command figures to go with mould PA3129 'Jager', which were deliberately designed to also be used as generic (Prussian) infantry standing and kneeling firing. 

The initial idea was for two moulds with four figures:

1. Drummer
2. Standard Bearer
3. NCO
4. Officer ???????????????

I personally don't use figures standing firing, so the choice of figures and poses is to some degree 'up for grabs' - so comments please?

Drummer

I would suggest a drummer in 'Prussian' SYW uniform with a similar pose to the old HE27 mould. 

The issue is do you want it with lace on the arms as PA3102, or without as PA3104. My preference would be without. (I only have PA3102 and get tired of cutting and filing off the lace to use as Austrians!)

This was back in the early days when they had the figures painted for the packaging.

Standard Bearer

There is a standard bearer in the HE range, however I'm not that keen on the pose as it just looks too casual. I think it would look better either held in two hands, or with the pole resting on the ground.

A quick search of the web came up with this, he could either have it raised or on the ground . An NCO in this pose would do the job?

NCO

As discussed above, the standard was carried by an NCO, one option would be to have a single NCO figure to act as both the NCO and standard bearer. I suspect the pose which is a combination of both figures, with a standing pose, the man's left arm holding the sword (as right hand figure), but right arm closer to the body (as right figure), with the body part rotated to be suitable for semi-flats  - again what do you think?

Officer

There is standing 'General Officer' in mould PA3127, however the lapels on the coat are a bit heavy and he has no gorget - is he acceptable or is something else needed?

Discussion

Please note that these are not even on the to do list yet, however PA have told me they have received requests for these moulds, so I will pull together some ideas and collate it for them.

As I don't have a lot or personal interest in these moulds, this is one to open up for discussion in the comments.

As a starting point - IF PA were to produce 2 moulds, and the officer is considered OK, then how about:

1. Drummer as HE27 with no arm lace.
2. Dual purpose NCO/standard bearer as right hand figure,
3. Musketeer at ready (someone send a link to preferred pose)
4. Musketeer loading, as PA51

The two musketeers would not only be additions to the firing line, they would also add to the light infantry poses (that is something I would use).

Over to you!

Musketeer at the ready

Stefan has suggested the following pose. He would probably look OK mixed in with the firing line, however I 'm not sure he would look right as an addition to the light infantry skirmishers?

Austrian SYW Wagons etc

 Following on from Stefan's comments on wagons.

The there are some drawings in Duffy's books, however I find the plates in the following book (it is very cheap on Amazon) most interesting:

Unfortunately the relevant plates are too large for my A4 scanner, so here are some photos from my mobile. There is a mix of two and four horse teams, presumably it depends on the weight of the load being pulled.

Wild Geese 2025 - Battle of Domstadtl

I was asked for some pictures of recent games, to be quite honest I've not been using the semi-flats much recently, however back in June I put on a game for the meeting of the 'Wild Geese' wargamers at our annual event in Kenilworth.

For something a little different I put on the Combat at Domstadtl, 30th June 1758, which was a raid on a HUGE wagon train - a bit of background from my briefing notes for the players.

Combat at Domstadtl, 30th June 1758

From May 20 1758, Frederick conducted the Siege of Olmütz, by late June resistance was nearing its end, just one last convoy of ammunition should have been enough to finish the siege.

On June 21, a large Prussian supply convoy set off from Troppau under heavy escort. The convoy consisted of some 4,000 wagons of which 818 transporting the vital ammunition. The convoy extended for about 32 km, with an escort in three brigades: vanguard, middle, rear-guard, with sparse pickets in between.

On June 28, Loudon attacked the convoy, however the escort managed to repulse him. To further support the convoy Zieten came from Olmütz with extra troops and Loudon was strengthened by Siskovics with an additional Austrian corps. The forces all converged on 30th June near Domstadtl. At a point where the road went through a pass and over a stream (I represented this as a bridge over a river), at this point Austrians sprang their ambush.

The best description of the battle I could find is on the Kronoskaf website - it's worth a read!

The game was played on a 12' x 6' table, so I placed the 'bridge' at Domstadtl at one end and the village of Altliebe at the other, connected by a road near the middle of the table.

I like to get the troop density about right, based on unit frontages (obviously all the other dimensions are way out). I scaled the battle based on the 3.5 Prussian battalions of infantry and a few hussars attacking Siskovics; which I represented by 3 battalions.

The units in the game are (very) approximately 75% of those present, for example there were 12 Austrian battalions in the battle, 2 grenadier, 6 infantry and 4 grenzer, which I represented with 9 battalions; 2 grenadier, 4 infantry and 3 grenzer.

The game was played with 4 players, who were sat in alternating corners, with Prussians controlling the two halves of the road, and the Austrians attacking from the south east and north west. In addition to defeating the enemy, the Austrians had to destroy as many wagons as possible, and the Prussians protect them and get as many as possible over the bridge as possible - simple.

Preparation

I had all the Austrian and Prussian troops needed (not the actual regiments, but the right types), however I was just a little short of 40mm wagons. Originally I was just going to use a few token wagons, but in the end megalomania took over and I decided to fill the whole road; so I have over 20!

The wagons themselves are 3D printed with the bodies on a filament printer and the wheels in resin. They are  Napoleonic types, but I decided they would do the job, even though they are obviously wrong, particularly the caissons - I did modify some of the later prints to look a little more in period, overall I was pleased with the result - and the players liked them..

The horses and mounted drivers are cast from the Karoliner range, some with SYW heads, although the wagons should have 4-horse teams I went for 2-horse, as I got fed up of casting horses that I would probably never use again.

The wagon driver on foot is a resin printed 'special', which Chris kindly sculpted for me, unfortunately being semi-flat his arm is a long way from the horse - and resin does not bend!

 How did it play?

We played using a modified version of 'A Gentleman's War', with the card based unit activation system replaced with a simpler one with whole army alternate moves. We played the game 3 times with games taking about 3 hours each. 

As planned the game was absolute mayhem, with units attacking each other and the wagons from all directions. I did not quite get the play balance right as the Prussians won all 3 games, but close enough to be fun.

As usual I forgot to take many photos, so the ones below are mostly pinched from Aly Morrison's blog.

Starting positions

I must paint more grenz!

Safety at last!